Saturday, 6 September 2014

SportOp B5300 Recumbent Bike

Gord and I were members of the local YMCA for the last couple of years ... but we weren't going.

It was hard to find parking, they'd bumped a class we liked later in the evening and they'd gotten rid of the stationary bikes I liked (the new ones were too big for me ... my feet barely reached the pedals).

So we both finally quit last month ... it was a waste of $55/month for each of us.

But I need to lose weight and exercise ... but it has to be easy and convenient for me or I won't do it. So I decided to buy a stationary bike for home ... I can work out while I read or watch TV (which I'm doing anyway) regardless of the weather or the time of day. No excuses!

Last Friday I bought a recumbent bike at Fitness Depot (at Yonge/Glencairn). We couldn't fit it in our car so I arranged to have it delivered ... it arrived on Tuesday evening. Thankfully it was already put together ... the instructions to do that are mind blowing!

We don't have a big place so we put it right in our living room. Ta-da!

The display feedback includes time, speed, distance, watt (not sure what that means yet), RPM, calories, hand pulse and load (resistance). There are 12 pre-set programs (three beginner, three advance, three sporty and three cardio) ... each with different levels of changing intensity. There are four heart rate programs for fat-loss, cardio improvement or peak heart rate training. There is also manual mode.

I used it for the first time this morning (I was in Montreal from Tuesday to Thursday and I was tired yesterday). I did Beginner 1 mode for 30 minutes ... there are three intensity levels and you end up finishing on the second one. I ended up biking 9.13km and burned 243 calories. I was feeling it and worked up a good sweat!